Today's Mining Pulse
Chinese financing fuels a $98 billion mineral power shift
A wave of $98 billion in Chinese financing and heightened U.S. diplomatic activity has thrust critical minerals into the geopolitical spotlight. Resource‑rich nations such as the DRC, Brazil and Zambia are leveraging their mineral wealth to negotiate better terms and assert greater control over strategic industries.
Also developing:
Gladiator Prepares 2026 Copper Campaign
Gladiator Metals Corp. announced the start of its 2026 drilling campaign at the Whitehorse Copper project in Yukon, beginning with a 35,000‑meter program focused on the Cowley and Cub East targets. The fully funded, $15 million budget is supported by a new Class 3 permit that allows higher drill density. Early results from Cub East have already shown high‑grade copper‑gold‑silver skarn intersections, while the Great Southern district presents a larger IP‑gravity anomaly. The company plans to expand drilling across multiple trends later in the year.
Panellists Emphasise Importance of Policy Implementation for Effective Tailings Management, ...
South Africa’s mining sector convened a Creamer Media webinar on 8 April to address gaps between robust tailings regulations and their on‑ground implementation. Panelists highlighted the urgent need for closure certificates and faster authorisation processes, noting that the Department of Mineral...
Silver Rate Today in India Is Below ₹2.40 Lakh. Is This the Right Time to Buy the White Metal?
MCX silver futures slipped 1.17% to ₹2.37,100 per kilogram, pushing the rate below the ₹2.40 lakh threshold. The decline reflects cautious market sentiment, weak safe‑haven demand, and a firm US dollar. Technical analysis places immediate resistance near ₹2.46,5 lakh and support at...
Northern Lights Adds Third CO2 Carrier to Expand CCS Network
The Northern Lights joint venture has added a third liquefied carbon dioxide carrier, the Northern Phoenix, to its fleet. The vessel will haul captured CO₂ from Yara’s facilities to the Øygarden receiving terminal, where it will be piped to subsea storage....
Nickel Mining Threatens Raja Ampat’s World‑Class Marine Sanctuary
Indonesia approved new nickel mining concessions on three islands in Raja Ampat in 2025, igniting a clash with conservationists who have seen fish biomass double and manta populations soar. The dispute pits a $40 entry‑fee‑funded marine park against a sector...
P2 Gold Drills 0.90 G/T Gold and 0.34% Copper over 48.77 Metres, Including 1.61 G/T Gold and 0.49% Copper over...
P2 Gold Inc. announced results from ten new reverse‑circulation drill holes at the Lucky Strike Zone of its Gabbs Project in Nevada. Hole GBR‑103 intersected 0.90 g/t gold and 0.34% copper over 48.77 m, including a higher‑grade core of 1.61 g/t gold and...
The Honourable Floyd Green Calls on Investors to “Think Critical Minerals. Think Jamaica.”
Jamaican Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining Floyd Green told investors at PDAC 2026 that the island is expanding beyond its historic bauxite and aluminum sector to attract gold, copper and critical‑mineral projects. He highlighted partnerships such as Barrick Gold’s...
Alcoa Rejects Mercury Emissions Concerns From Its WA Refinery
Alcoa’s Wagerup alumina refinery in Western Australia reported a spike in mercury emissions, reaching about 400 kilograms in 2025—almost twice the 2022 level. The increase coincides with higher bauxite throughput and deteriorating condensers, which Alcoa attributes to natural ore variation....
Why High Oil Prices Are Good for Oil Companies — Until They Aren't
Oil prices have surged to $90‑$100 a barrel after the Iran conflict, delivering a multi‑billion‑dollar profit boost for U.S. producers such as ExxonMobil. However, the windfall is tempered by hedging contracts that lock many firms to $57 per barrel and...
Gold ETF Outflows Hit Record in March as Asian Buying Offsets Western Selling
Gold-backed exchange‑traded funds recorded a historic $11.8 bn outflow in March, equivalent to roughly 85 tonnes of physical gold, as North American investors fled the market. The sell‑off ended nine months of net inflows, with SPDR Gold Shares shedding $8.4 bn and...
China Tankers Join Line to Test Hormuz Exit and Iran Truce
Two Cosco‑linked VLCCs and a smaller Chinese tanker are positioned at the Strait of Hormuz, ready to become the first vessels to exit the Persian Gulf under the newly announced US‑Iran cease‑fire. The ships – Cospearl Lake, Yuan Hua Hu...
Tech to Accelerate Assay Turnaround in BC
Paragon Advanced Labs has linked Chrysos Corp.’s PhotonAssay with Veracio’s whole‑rock scanner at a new British Columbia hub, creating a rapid, non‑destructive assay workflow. PhotonAssay can quantify gold, silver and copper in about two minutes, while the Veracio scanner adds...
Georgia’s Forestry Industry Is in Crisis. One Solution Could Be in Your Medicine Cabinet.
Georgia tops the nation in timber harvest volume and forest‑product exports, but a wave of paper‑mill closures and damage from Hurricane Helene have pushed its forestry sector into crisis. Roughly 92% of the state’s forests are privately owned, meaning landowners...
GR Engineering Awarded EPC Contract to Deliver Coarse Particle Flotation Project for Northparkes
GR Engineering has secured a A$68 million (≈US$48 million) EPC contract with Evolution Mining’s Northparkes subsidiary to upgrade the mine’s coarse particle flotation circuit. The upgrade targets a roughly 2% lift in copper recovery, higher throughput to 8 Mt/y, and better energy efficiency....
US–Iran Conflict Exposes Zimbabwe’s Export Vulnerability
Zimbabwe’s export profile is heavily skewed toward the United Arab Emirates, with 51.6% of merchandise exports—valued at $969.4 million in February—passing through Dubai. The ongoing US‑Iran war has disrupted Gulf shipping lanes and airspace, raising freight costs and threatening gold shipments...
Coal Exports Fetch US$16.5 Million in February as Zimbabwe Eyes Upstream Value Addition
Zimbabwe’s coal exports generated US$16.5 million in February 2026, representing just 1.7 percent of the country’s US$969.4 million total merchandise exports. While gold, tobacco and platinum‑group metals dominate the export basket, coal is primarily consumed domestically for power generation at the Hwange Thermal...
Glencore, Taiwan’s CPC Charter Tankers as Hormuz Reopens
Glencore and Taiwan’s state refiner CPC each chartered a VLCC to load Middle Eastern crude for Asia after a cease‑fire halted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The vessels, including Glencore’s Asian Lion, were booked at a Worldscale rate of...
Gold Exports Fetch US$278.5 Million in February as Deliveries Surge
Zimbabwe’s gold export earnings jumped to US$278.5 million in February 2026, a 138% increase over the same month a year earlier. The surge was driven by a sharp rise in deliveries from the artisanal and small‑scale mining (ASM) sector, which supplied...
Opus One Discloses First Results From Noyell Winter Drilling
Opus One Gold released initial assay results from its winter drilling campaign at the Noyell property in Quebec's Abitibi greenstone belt. Four rigs, after early personnel and mechanical setbacks, operated at near‑full capacity, focusing on Zone 1 definition and West Zone...
Macquarie Boosts 2026 Nickel Forecast Amid Tight Indonesian Supply
Macquarie raised its 2026 nickel forecast as Indonesia ore tightness and slower supply growth tighten market balance. https://www.metalnomist.com/2026/04/macquarie-nickel-price-outlook-turns.html
Canberra Backs Ardea Mammoth WA Nickel Project
Ardea Resources’ Kalgoorlie Nickel Project (KNP) has been selected for Australia’s Investor Front Door pilot, giving it a dedicated federal liaison to speed regulatory approvals. The project hosts the nation’s largest nickel‑cobalt resource—about 6.1 million tonnes of nickel and 386,000 tonnes of...
Dalaroo Launches 9km-Long West African Gold Soil Sampling Blitz
Dalaroo Metals has launched a 9‑km soil geochemical sampling campaign at the Goldridge prospect of its Bondoukou project in north‑eastern Côte d’Ivoire. The grid comprises 4,400 samples spaced 200 m by 50 m to turn the structural corridor into drill‑ready targets. Early...
Queensland Moves to Fast-Track Australia’s First New Oil Field in 50 Years
Queensland announced a fast‑track plan to develop the Taroom Trough, the nation’s first new oil field in five decades. Shell is already producing about 200 barrels of crude per day, which is refined locally into diesel. The state government is...
COPX: Copper Rush Is Just Getting Started
The Global X Copper Miners ETF (COPX) offers high‑beta, diversified exposure to a copper sector poised for strong growth as AI‑driven data center construction accelerates demand. Structural supply constraints, including declining ore grades and limited new projects, are tightening the...
Larvotto Lines up Defence Insider for NSW Antimony Push
Larvotto Resources has hired former federal senator David Fawcett as a strategic adviser to help position its Hillgrove antimony‑gold project as a key global supplier. The move targets growing demand for antimony in defence technology, night‑vision equipment and grid‑scale batteries,...
How the US Rebuilt a Collapsed Fishery
The West Coast groundfish fishery, once declared a disaster in 2000, rebounded after stringent federal measures including quota cuts, trawling bans, and a 2010 catch‑share program that allocated individual permits. Scientific monitoring and stricter observer requirements helped depleted stocks, culminating...
The Commodities Feed: Hormuz Remains Blocked for Now
Oil prices rebounded on Thursday, with ICE Brent climbing over 3% to trade above $97 per barrel as tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains halted. U.S. crude inventories unexpectedly rose by 3.1 million barrels, the highest level since June...
Locksley Fires up First Ever Drilling Beside Giant US Rare Earths Mine
Locksley Resources has begun its first subsurface drilling at the El Campo rare‑earth prospect, located 6.5 km southeast of the Mountain Pass mine in California. The four‑hole diamond program will test a 900‑metre strike that previously returned surface grades up to...
Viking Sharpens Nevada Tungsten Drill Targets with Gravity Survey
Viking Mines Ltd completed a combined ground gravity and magnetic survey at its Linka tungsten project in Nevada, confirming that gravity highs coincide with known scheelite‑bearing skarn mineralisation. The data sharpened drill‑ready targets at Linka Main, Hillside and Conquest and...
Northern Cape Hopes To Become SAs New Economic Growth Node
Acting Chief Economist Bongani Motsa warned that the Northern Cape’s extensive manganese and rare‑earth reserves could transform the province into South Africa’s next mining and beneficiation hub. Premier Dr. Zamani Saul framed mining as one of six pillars of the...
ANM Clears Sigma Lithium Waste, Legal Doubts Linger
Brazil’s ANM cleared Sigma Lithium’s waste piles, but legal uncertainty still hangs over the mine. https://www.metalnomist.com/2026/04/sigma-lithium-waste-piles-cleared-by.html
UAE Oil Chief Calls Hormuz Closure “Control, Not Passage”
UAE senior oil official Sultan Al Jaber denounces the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. “Access is being restricted, conditioned and controlled,” “Conditional passage is not passage. It is control by another name,” he says. https://t.co/TFczKBO4kk
Red Mountain to Launch New Season Field Exploration Campaign at US Antimony Projects
Red Mountain Mining is restarting exploration at its US antimony projects after the winter break, beginning systematic surface geological mapping and sampling at the Thompson Falls claim where rock‑chip assays returned up to 36.5% antimony and 1.12 ppm gold. The company...
Ceasefire Holds, Yet Hormuz Shipping Remains Stalled
The good news: attacks have come down markedly (ex Lebanon), and the fragile ceasefire seems to be holding. The bad news: so far, almost no movement of ships in-and-out of the Strait of Hormuz. Several Chinese oil tankers have pre-positioned to...
American Pacific Mining Owns High‑Grade Copper‑Gold Madison Mine
PDAC 2026: American Pacific Mining CEO Warwick Smith $USGD.CA $USGDF Am Pacific is the 100%-owner of The High Grade Copper-Gold Madison Mine in Montana https://t.co/ijKPf7hggs https://t.co/sZmKJ0sWvK
Lower Petrol Prices Imminent as Global Oil Prices Plunge 15%
Global oil markets tumbled after President Donald Trump announced a two‑week US‑Iran ceasefire, sending Brent crude down 15% to $92 per barrel and WTI to $92.5. The price shock quickly filtered to Nigeria, where the Dangote Refinery reduced its pump...
US Crude Inventories Plunge, Prices Set to Surge
The US API Weekly Crude Oil Stock just released at 3.72 M, DECREASING significantly from 10.26M the month prior. With the supply cutting off, it’s not a surprise that we are draining down reserves. When you reach the bottom of the tank,...
Giant Gold Mine Operating with 90 Pct Renewables Says It Has Virtually Eliminated Diesel Costs
Bellevue Gold’s remote Western Australian mine is now operating with roughly 90 % of its power supplied by a 90‑MW hybrid renewable system, effectively eliminating most diesel use. Diesel fuel accounted for only 1.3 % of total project costs in the FY...
Iran Strikes Saudi’s Critical Pipeline Serving Yanbu
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps struck the East‑West (Petroline) pipeline that feeds the Red Sea port of Yanbu, Saudi Arabia’s primary crude export route after the Strait of Hormuz was blocked. The line has been moving up to seven million barrels...
Mithril Silver and Gold Confirms Widespread High-Grade Mineralisation at Copalquin’s Target 3 Prospect
Australian explorer Mithril Silver and Gold (ASX:MTH) announced high‑grade epithermal mineralisation at its Copalquin Target 3 prospect in Durango, Mexico. Shallow drilling across 1.2 km² returned intercepts up to 33.2 g/t Au and 151 g/t Ag, with the best hole delivering 0.9 m at 2.79 g/t...
Australia Must Lean Into Fossil Fuel Production
Judith Sloan, writing in The Australian, urges the government to dismantle long‑standing barriers to domestic fossil‑fuel development. She argues the bipartisan "war" on fossil fuels has persisted for nearly two decades, driven by a flawed belief that the net‑zero transition...
Weekly Notes (4/8/2026)
Hycroft Mining disclosed a 53 million‑tonne resource grading 304 g/t gold, plus a 1.3 g/t gold intercept at its Vortex project. First Majestic Silver announced a restart of the Jerrit Canyon mine slated for the second half of 2027, with a feasibility study...
24 New Species Found in Ocean Zone Eyed for Battery Metals Mining
Scientists described 24 new amphipod species, including a brand‑new superfamily and family, from sediment cores collected 4,000 m deep in the Clarion‑Clipperton Zone (CCZ). The CCZ spans roughly 6 million km² of the central Pacific and is rich in nickel, cobalt and copper...
Apollo Hill Grows as Saturn Locks in Ausenco for Gold Study
Saturn Metals announced high‑grade gold intercepts at its Apollo Hill project in Western Australia, including a 4‑metre interval grading 70.03 g/t gold north of the existing 2.24‑million‑ounce resource. The results define a new exploration corridor and keep mineralisation open in multiple...
EcoGraf Fields Growing Investor Interest in Development of Tanzanian Gold Portfolio
EcoGraf (ASX:EGR) is courting investors and major gold producers as it evaluates development pathways for its 3,000‑square‑kilometre Golden Frontier portfolio in Tanzania. The company presented an initial exploration results package and highlighted its flagship Epanko project alongside a vertically integrated...
Wildcat Grows Bolt Cutter as Drilling Extends Lithium System
Wildcat Resources announced a roughly 300‑metre northward extension of its Bolt Cutter Central lithium discovery in Western Australia’s Pilbara, pushing the known mineralised strike to more than 2.3 km northwest and 800 m northeast. The latest diamond drilling intersected visual spodumene in...
Red Mountain Mining Gears up for US Antimony Push
Red Mountain Mining (ASX:RMX) is set to resume US field work this spring, launching systematic surface mapping and sampling at its Thompson Falls antimony project. Early rock‑chip assays returned up to 36.5% antimony and 1.12 ppm gold, prompting the company to move...
Greatland’s Quarter Shines Bright
Greatland Resources reported a strong Q1 2026, producing 82,723 ounces of gold and 4,128 tonnes of copper, bringing year‑to‑date totals to 249,887 ounces of gold and 11,022 tonnes of copper. Sales reached 97,800 ounces of gold and 4,620 tonnes of...
Tivan Mobilises for Tungsten Drilling at Molyhil
Tivan has mobilised its 2026 fieldwork campaign in central Australia, launching a 13‑hole, 1,950‑metre drilling program at the Molyhil tungsten project after receiving Northern Territory regulatory clearance. The first‑phase effort aims to discover new tungsten mineralisation beyond the existing 4.647 Mt...
Lefroy Exploration Returns Strong Gold Assays From Phase 2 Grade Control Drilling at Lucky Strike
Lefroy Exploration reported strong shallow assay results from Phase 2 grade‑control drilling at the South pit of its Lucky Strike project in Western Australia, including a 16‑metre interval at 3.39 g/t gold and a 2‑metre zone at 11.09 g/t. The drilling also identified high‑grade...